Peace and Freedom: Foreign Policy for a Constitutional Republic

Preface

During my 17 years as a scholar at the Cato Institute, I have written on a wide range of foreign policy topics for newspapers, magazines, and policy journals. Peace and Freedom: A Foreign Policy for a Constitutional Republic is a representative sample of those writings. Taken as a whole, they present a comprehensive view of what I believe should be America’s strategy for dealing with the rest of the world. That approach, which I call ‘‘strategic independence,’’ emphasizes a vigorous defense of America’s vital interests and a rigorous adherence to America’s fundamental values. Strategic independence rejects the notion that the United States should intervene militarily when vital interests are not at stake. Promiscuous global interventionism places needless burdens on American taxpayers, entangles the United States in an assortment of irrelevant quarrels, and ultimately puts the lives of all Americans at risk.

Most of my conclusions have stood the test of time. My prediction that the drug war in Latin America would prove to be an endless, futile crusade seems even sounder today than when I first made it in the mid-1980s. Likewise, my warnings that Washington’s victory in the Persian Gulf War would be merely the beginning of a long and frustrating mission in that region, that nation-building enterprises in such places as Somalia and the Balkans would prove disappointing, and that America’s NATO and East Asian allies would continue to free ride on the U.S. security guarantee have been borne out. Most notably, my argument that the United States needed a more coherent and effective strategy to deal with the threat of terrorism seems all too evident in light of the events of September 11.

A few other conclusions were less accurate. I overestimated the determination of Russian leaders to resist NATO’s expansion eastward, overestimated the likelihood that disaffected factions in Bosnia would target U.S. and NATO peacekeeping troops, and overestimated (at least so far) the willingness of U.S. administrations to use military personnel to wage the international war on drugs. No one bats a thousand in the policy analysis field, and I am no exception to that rule. Any policy expert who contends that he managed to get every issue right is either deceiving himself or trying to deceive others.

On still other issues, it is too soon to tell whether my conclusions are correct or incorrect. For example, I have articulated a ‘‘hedging strategy’’ for dealing with China, but it may be another decade or two before it will be possible to determine whether that is the best approach. I’ve also expressed the view that America’s intervention in Kosovo will ultimately make the southern Balkans less rather than more stable, but only time will tell whether that prediction is accurate.

Gratitude is owed to several individuals for making this book possible. I am especially grateful to Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, for his consistent and enthusiastic support of my work over the past 17 years. He has chosen to make a critique of U.S. foreign policy a core component of the Institute’s program even when it might have been easier (and more rewarding in terms of fundraising) to have ignored the topic. That decision reflects both courage and integrity. I am grateful as well to David Boaz, Cato’s executive vice president, for his support and helpful comments.

Finally, I want to express a special thanks to Jennifer Assenza for her work in preparing the manuscript. Without her able and diligent efforts, it would simply not have been possible for me to complete such a complex undertaking in a timely fashion.

Introduction: U.S. Security Strategy

after 9-11

The horrific events of September 11 underscore the need for a shift in the focus of America’s security policy. Prior to September 11 it would have been nearly impossible to find a U.S. policymaker or high-ranking military officer who believed that the highest priority of the U.S. armed forces was to respond to an attack on the American homeland. For more than half a century, the principal mission of the U.S. military had been to serve as an instrument of Washington’s foreign policy in far-flung regions of the world. As a military mission, homeland defense was barely on the radar screen.

Now, that has all changed. U.S. forces have fought al-Qaeda terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan and helped to overthrow the Taliban government that made that country a haven for Osama bin Laden and his followers. Speculation is rampant about where the next phase of the war against the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks will be conducted. Those Americans who believe that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has links to anti-U.S. terrorists (including, perhaps, al-Qaeda itself) want the next stage to be an attack on Iraq to remove his regime. Other Americans believe that dangerous cells of al-Qaeda fighters are hunkered down in such countries as Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan and that the war should be taken to those locales. An attack on Iraq, in their view, is inappropriate and potentially counterproductive.

There is also disagreement about the proper scope of America’s anti-terrorist mission. The Bush administration has added to the confusion by making inconsistent, even contradictory, statements. At times, the administration seems to focus on the people responsible for the September 11 attacks. (The congressional resolution authorizing the use of force also is restricted to those adversaries.) But on other occasions, administration officials have implied that America’s goal is a war against terrorism per se, whether specific terrorist organizations target the United States or only other countries. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush went even further, singling out Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an ‘‘axis of evil’’ and indicating that the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by those countries was part of a global terrorist threat.

America badly needs to clarify its objectives. A war against alQaeda and any other organization or government that targets the United States for attack is different from a general crusade against all organizations that use terrorist tactics against some adversary. The latter would be an extraordinarily broad and difficult mission. Yet even that mission is narrower than a crusade against all terrorist organizations plus all evil regimes that might possess weapons of mass destruction. One of the prime requirements of any good security strategy is that its objectives be realistic and attainable. There are serious doubts about whether either the second or the third mission can meet that test.

Equally troubling is Washington’s failure to adjust its overall security strategy to meet the new threat. There has been no discernible willingness to rethink old commitments and obligations even though America now confronts a dangerous new adversary. Instead, all of the old missions are preserved and the new one is simply added to the list. That is a terribly myopic approach. The United States should have used the end of the Cold War to conduct a detailed audit of its security commitments around the globe, determine which ones were no longer relevant, and develop a security strategy appropriate for the post–Cold War era. The refusal to undertake such a reassessment was a major failing of U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s.

With the events of September 11, such a reassessment is no longer merely desirable, it is imperative. It is clear that even a narrowly defined anti-terrorist campaign will be a major concern of the United States for several years. Obsolete or nonessential commitments are a distraction that the United States can ill afford—financially or otherwise. September 11 should be the catalyst for creating a wholly new security strategy for the United States in the 21st century. If conducted properly, a detailed audit will produce a policy that will enhance America’s security at less cost and risk.

An appropriate security strategy for the United States should be based on an assessment of current and prospective conditions in the international system, an appreciation of America’s exceptional geostrategic position within that system, and an unemotional calculation of the most cost-effective and risk-averse methods of protecting the Republic’s vital interests. Because of the vast changes that have occurred in the past decade or so in the international system, the United States can exploit its unique geostrategic advantages (unparalleled military capabilities, markedly superior economy, and lack of powerful, hostile neighboring states) in ways that would have been difficult during the atypical era of Cold War bipolarity. Specifically, since there is no looming hegemonic threat, Washington can be far more selective in its political and military commitments. The United States can play the role of balancer of last resort rather than intervener of first resort.

Unfortunately, post–Cold War U.S. policymakers have reflexively sought to preserve the principal features of the strategy the United States pursued during the Cold War—high levels of military spending, an emphasis on U.S. global leadership, and a hypersensitive reaction to ‘‘aggression’’ anywhere in the world—despite the vastly altered strategic environment. There has been no willingness to jettison or even downgrade Washington’s Cold War–era security commitments. NATO and the bilateral alliances with such countries as Japan and South Korea are deemed as vital as ever, as is the strategy of forward deployment of U.S. forces to underscore the seriousness of America’s commitments. Where substantive policy changes have occurred, the result has been an even more interventionist tendency. For example, the United States is now undertaking security obligations in Central and Eastern Europe through an expanded NATO and has become the would-be stabilizer of the perennially turbulent Balkans.

That approach is fundamentally wrong-headed. The United States should not construct its 21st-century foreign policy around slightly remodeled components of its Cold War policy. A radically altered global political, economic, and strategic environment calls for rethinking all assumptions and building a new policy from the ground up. A new, more relevant U.S. policy should emphasize three features.

Encourage Multiple Centers of Power

One of the major components of a security strategy ought to be a willingness to encourage the emergence of multiple centers of power, that is, a global environment with several economic and military great powers and an assortment of mid-sized regional powers. Rather than resist the international system’s return to a more ‘‘normal’’ condition of multipolarity—a return that is occurring gradually in any case, regardless of U.S. preferences—Washington should accept that change and seek to turn it to America’s advantage. The presence of other significant political and military players in the international system—especially if those players are stable, status quo, democratic great powers—can provide important security buffers for the United States. Ideally, such states might take the lead in forging effective regional security organizations. A more robust version of the European Union is the most prominent example of that possibility. In most cases, though, regional multipolarity would take the form of more informal balance-of-power arrangements. Even that outcome, however, would usually serve American interests. Indeed, the mere existence of multiple powers (even if some of them were not especially friendly to the United States) would make it less likely that a hegemonic threat comparable to that posed by the Soviet Union could ever emerge again.

Unfortunately, there is today a virtual obsession among U.S. policymakers with protecting America’s prerogatives as the self-proclaimed indispensable nation. Almost any political or military initiative by other major countries, even democratic countries, is seen as a threat to America’s preeminent status. To be sure, that is not a new phenomenon. Several scholars have argued that Washington has long sought to ‘‘smother’’ the ambitions of other great powers and mesh them into the U.S.-led security system and global economy.

The heart of the smothering strategy has been to prevent the rise of any political and military competitor, especially in Western Europe or East Asia. That approach at least arguably made sense when it seemed necessary for Washington to mobilize the resources and capabilities of the free (or more accurately, noncommunist) world to contain Soviet power. The rationale is far less compelling when there is no lethal common threat requiring a unified resistance effort under U.S. leadership. Yet, ironically, the objective of discouraging other powers from even aspiring to play more active political and military roles was most candidly expressed after the Cold War— in the preliminary draft of the Pentagon’s planning guidance document that was leaked to the press in 1992.

Throughout the post–Cold War period, U.S. officials have reacted with suspicion and alarm whenever they have detected signs that another major power was seeking to become more active in the security realm. For example, when Japanese prime minister Toshiki Kaifu made a surprise proposal in the summer of 1991 for a ‘‘security dialogue’’ between Japan and the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Washington reacted vehemently. Secretary of State James A. Baker III warned the ASEAN foreign ministers against adopting new arrangements that would replace ‘‘tried and true frameworks’’ involving the United States. Privately, U.S. officials expressed strong opposition to the Japanese proposal because it might weaken the bilateral arrangements between the United States and various nations in East Asia.

The Clinton administration was more subtle in implementing the smothering strategy, but administration officials still seized every opportunity to emphasize America’s determination to maintain a large military presence in East Asia and to continue the role of stabilizer. For example, Secretary of Defense William Cohen stated that the United States would hope to keep forces deployed in Korea even if reunification of the peninsula takes place—a policy that the administration of George W. Bush has also endorsed.

The Pentagon’s 1995 security strategy report for the East Asia–Pacific region likewise confirmed the insistence on U.S. preeminence. That report conceded that one important reason forward-deployed U.S. forces were in East Asia was to ‘‘discourage the emergence of a regional hegemon.’’ Although U.S. officials were vague about what rival might aspire to that status, a passage in the report suggested the cause of Washington’s apprehension: ‘‘If the United States does not provide the central, visible, stabilizing force in the Asia and Pacific region,’’ the report cautioned, ‘‘it is quite possible that another country might—but not in a way that meets America’s fundamental interests. . . .’’ The reference to a ‘‘stabilizing’’ force suggests that Washington primarily fears that Japan, rather than a potentially revisionist power such as the People’s Republic of China, is the potential rival for primacy.

The wary, if not hostile, attitude toward an activist security role for Tokyo is reflected in the revisions to the defense guidelines for the U.S.-Japanese alliance announced in September 1997. The principal change authorized Japanese nonlethal logistical support for U.S. military operations in ‘‘areas surrounding Japan’’ that are relevant to Japan’s own security. Although the new defense guidelines confirmed that U.S. officials had finally accepted the need to modestly increase Japan’s involvement in the region’s security affairs, Tokyo was still seen as Washington’s very junior partner. There is no indication that U.S. leaders ever want Japan to have a responsibility equal to America’s for preserving stability in East Asia—much less that they want Japan to assume the lead role. The new defense guidelines merely allow Japan to be a slightly more active and helpful U.S. military dependent.

Washington has been just as firmly committed to the smothering strategy with regard to Western Europe. Historian Ronald Steel captures the underlying reality of the long-standing U.S. preeminence in NATO, noting that throughout the Cold War the alliance had been a kind of ‘‘Lincoln’s Cabinet’’: every member would solemnly express its opinion, but the American president had the only vote that mattered.

With the collapse of the Soviet empire, the West European countries attempted to show greater assertiveness. Instead of encouraging such signs of initiative, however, Washington reacted with hostility to manifestations of greater European self-reliance. As early as February 1991, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft complained that the West European governments were meeting privately on security issues and then presenting a common front to the United States.

The Bush administration sought to undermine more recent manifestations of European military initiative, such as the EU’s effort to create a common security and foreign policy. Clinton administration officials stressed that the United States would support such an initiative only if the EU’s security entity did not duplicate NATO’s military resources or decouple U.S. and European security interests. Even that tepid support was too much for John Bolton, who became under secretary of state in the Bush administration. Bolton (and other incoming Bush administration officials) criticized the EU’s efforts as inherently threatening to NATO. In other words, U.S. policymakers insist that Europe’s security structure in the 21st century be centered around NATO—the security organization in which the United States plays the dominant role.

Events in both East Asia and Europe have underscored the unpleasant side effects of the smothering strategy. The tensions between the PRC and Taiwan in early 1996, and the subsequent deployment of U.S. naval forces, produced a disturbing revelation. Washington’s ‘‘friends and allies’’ in East Asia carefully distanced their policies from that of the United States as the Clinton administration dispatched two aircraft carriers to the western Pacific. The same lack of allied support was evident in April 2001 during the tense confrontation between the United States and China when a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese air force jet collided over the South China Sea.

That lack of support suggests that Washington’s habit of discouraging independent security initiatives on the part of the East Asian countries has created a dangerous and unrewarding situation. How the East Asian countries have exploited Washington’s insistence on U.S. preeminence is illustrated in a comment by former Japanese prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that U.S. forces stationed in Japan should be used as a watchdog to prevent conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region. Nakasone’s rationale was that Japan provides money to the United States, allows it to station troops in Japan, and uses them as watchdogs. He added that he thought such an arrangement was wise.

That cynical exploitation of Washington’s superpower vanity puts the United States in a precarious position, especially with regard to the PRC. If China makes a bid for regional hegemony at some point, there is no power other than the United States that would have the capability to block such a bid. That is a blueprint for a U.S.-Chinese conflict in which Japan and China’s other neighbors remain on the sidelines. Unless Washington encourages Japan to become the primary strategic counterweight to an increasingly assertive China, and informs the other East Asian countries that America will not be the volunteer security watchdog for the region, the United States will end up filling the watchdog role by default.

Similarly, events in the former Yugoslavia expose the downside of the smothering strategy in Europe. As the EU stumbled in its mediation attempts (often undermined by Washington’s carping, if not sabotage), the United States retook the lead role in containing the disorder. The result is that America is now mired in a seemingly interminable peacekeeping and nation-building venture in Bosnia— a mission that President Clinton promised in late 1995 would last only one year. Even worse, the United States is rapidly becoming the de facto ruling power of the entire Balkan region. That point became evident in 1999 when the United States led a NATO military intervention in Kosovo. U.S. troops have been on the ground in Kosovo ever since, leading another open-ended peacekeeping mission.

The smothering strategy is a losing proposition for the United States in another way. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the international system abhors unipolarity and global hegemonic pretensions, even on the part of a democratic great power that regards its hegemony as benign and universally beneficial. The more the United States proclaims itself the ‘‘sole remaining superpower,’’ the greater the incentives for other powers to seek opportunities to puncture that status. The behavior of France and Russia in systematically undermining Washington’s efforts to isolate Iraq and Iran is a classic example of such an approach.

Thus, Washington’s smothering strategy threatens to create the worst of all possible outcomes from the standpoint of America’s best interests. When it serves their interests, other ‘‘friendly powers’’ can wheedle the United States into subsidizing their defense or incurring the costs and risks of dealing with messy regional problems. On other occasions, when it serves their interests, those same countries can ignore U.S. policy preferences and even sabotage U.S. policy initiatives.

Washington should abandon its smothering strategy and actively facilitate the emergence of multiple centers of power in the international system. True, there is a small risk that encouraging such countries as Japan and Germany (or a cohesive EU) to become more self-reliant and assertive might someday produce a strategic adversary. But it is an exceedingly remote risk and one well worth incurring. It is far more likely that such entities would be the principal firebreaks against disorder and aggression in their respective regions—a development that would provide significant indirect security benefits to the United States.

Reject the ‘‘Light-Switch’’ Model of U.S. Engagement

A second component of a new foreign policy would be to recognize that U.S. engagement in world affairs can take a variety of forms. Unfortunately, whenever critics suggest pruning Washington’s overgrown global security commitments, defenders of the status quo reflexively cry ‘‘isolationism.’’

That reaction is a manifestation of the light-switch theory of American engagement—that there can be only two possible positions, on or off. Either the United States continues pursuing an indiscriminate global interventionist policy that requires putting American military personnel at risk in such places as Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans, or we adopt a ‘‘Fortress America’’ strategy and ‘‘wall ourselves off from the world.’’

Such a contention is either obtuse or disingenuous. No serious analyst advocates creating a hermit republic. It is possible to adopt a security policy between the extremes of global interventionism— which is essentially the current U.S. policy—and Fortress America. Moreover, there are different forms of engagement in world affairs, of which the political-military version is merely one. Economic connections and influence are crucial—and growing in importance. Diplomatic and cultural engagement is also significant, especially in the age of the information revolution.

There is no reason why the United States must have identical positions along each axis of engagement. It is entirely feasible to have extensive economic and cultural relations with the rest of the world and to have an active and creative diplomacy without playing the role of world policeman, much less the world’s armed social worker. For example, a refusal to police Europe, East Asia, or the Persian Gulf region does not imply that the United States must withdraw from the World Trade Organization. Those are separable issues. Similarly, a refusal to participate in peacekeeping and nationbuilding missions in the Balkans or elsewhere does not imply that the United States must spurn requests to mediate disputes. As long as the parties to a conflict understand and accept that Washington’s role is that of mediator, not arbitrator and financier, it is a proper function of U.S. diplomacy to help resolve problems. It is only in the areas of security commitments and military intervention that the United States needs to reduce its level of engagement.

Focus on the Big Issues

The final component of a new foreign policy would be to recognize that even a country as large and powerful as the United States cannot dictate outcomes everywhere and on every issue. There must be a sense of limits and a greater willingness to set priorities. The United States needs to focus its attention and energy on dealing with large- scale adverse changes in the international system, since those developments have the potential to pose a threat to America’s own security and well-being. The United States cannot afford to become bogged down in an assortment of petty conflicts in the name of preserving Washington’s global leadership.

U.S. policymakers must especially learn to distinguish between parochial squabbles and serious security threats. Interventionists invariably argue that the United States has no choice but to continue its global policing mission if it is to protect America’s own security. Disagreements among interventionists are confined to the proper method for carrying out that mission: unilaterally, as the ‘‘sheriff’’ leading coalitions of the willing, or as a good, collegial member of a more robust United Nations.

The argument that the United States must be the global policeman is based on the premise that manifestations of international disorder per se threaten American interests. But is that a valid assumption? The best case for that proposition was made during the Cold War, when it was plausible to argue that even minor regional or internecine conflicts had larger implications, since they typically involved surrogates of the other superpower or at least could be exploited by that rival. In a strategically bipolar world, the reasoning went, there were no geopolitical peripheries; a victory by a pro-Moscow regime or movement was a corresponding defeat for the U.S.-led ‘‘free world.’’

That approach oversimplified complex international realities even during the worst stages of the Cold War, and it led to such foolish commitments as the Vietnam intervention. But even if the reasoning was valid in the Cold War setting, it is inapplicable in the 21st century. The United States no longer faces a would-be hegemonic rival, nor is any credible challenger on the horizon. That development should fundamentally change how we view regional or internecine conflicts. In most cases such disorders will not impinge on vital U.S. interests. Washington can, therefore, afford to view them with detachment, intervening only as a balancer of last resort when a conflict cannot be contained by other powers in the affected region and is expanding to the point where America’s security is threatened. Indeed, a policy of promiscuous intervention actually increases one danger to America’s security: the possibility of terrorist reprisals.

From the standpoint of long-term American interests, what matters is the conduct of the dozen or so major powers—those nations with significant military or economic capabilities, or both. As long as those states remain at peace with one another, and no menacing would-be hegemonic power emerges, the only remaining threat to America’s security is the risk of terrorist attack. Events involving minor countries may create annoyances, but they do not disrupt a regional, much less the global, balance of power and the overall stability of the international system. Put bluntly, the behavior of a country like China ought to matter to the United States; whether Kosovo becomes independent, Somalia holds together, or injustices occur in Burma should not.

By exercising greater discrimination in evaluating the significance of the unsavory developments that are certain to occur from time to time around the world and abandoning the strategy of discouraging independent initiatives by regional players whose interests overlap with America’s interests, America would be able to exploit its uniquely advantageous geostrategic position and other unparalleled strengths. The United States may be the most geostrategically secure great power in history. America enjoys the luxury of weak, friendly, and relatively stable neighbors on its northern and southern borders as well as vast oceanic moats on its eastern and western flanks. Such factors make the notion of a major conventional military assault on the American homeland utterly implausible. The vast U.S. strategic arsenal—in addition to overwhelming conventional military superiority—makes a nuclear attack by a hostile state scarcely more likely. In addition, America has by far the largest and most productive economy, with all the attendant influence.

Those multiple advantages make the United States an ideal candidate to play the role that scholars have described variously as minimalist realism, off-shore balancer, and balancer of last resort. Playing such a role would be an appropriate response to the redistribution of power in the world in the post–Cold War era and the international system’s return to the normal status of multipolarity.

A global role based on America’s strategic independence combined with a policy of selective engagement that emphasized economic, diplomatic, and cultural interaction rather than promiscuous military intervention would be an enlightened and sustainable strategy for the 21st century. It would materially reduce the bloated U.S. defense budget. The United States currently spends more than $350 billion per year on the military—more than the expenditures of the next eight highest-spending countries combined. Moreover, the U.S. defense budget is projected to rise to more than $450 billion within five years. The huge disparity in military spending between the United States and all other countries is directly attributable to Washington’s far-flung security responsibilities. Playing a more cautious global political and military role would enable the United States to decommission superfluous units and cut the defense budget even as it focuses on waging war against its terrorist adversaries. Moreover, by refusing to be on the front lines of parochial conflicts, America would reduce its risk exposure—including the risk of terrorist retaliation. All that is needed is for U.S. policymakers to have the wisdom to adopt such a restrained, nuanced approach to world affairs.

Making that change would have been wise even before the events of September 11. The terrorist attacks on America have given added urgency to the need to adjust Washington’s security policy. As we confront a fanatical adversary, we cannot afford the distraction of maintaining increasingly obsolete and irrelevant security commitments around the globe. It borders on the absurd to have U.S. military leaders complaining about a lack of personnel to wage the war against al-Qaeda while 100,000 American troops sit uselessly in Western Europe, another 48,000 are deployed in Japan, and thousands more are tied down in baby-sitting missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. America must clear the decks for war against its terrorist adversaries, and that should mean jettisoning unnecessary commitments and exploiting the advantages of a multipolar world.

1. Responding to Terrorism

Introduction

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, compelled the United States to confront a dire threat to its security and well-being. Virtually all of Washington’s military actions in the post–World War II era have been discretionary. This one was not. America had little choice but to respond to the attacks by pursuing and eliminating the perpetrators. Cato Institute scholars were among the first to call for military action not only to eradicate the al-Qaeda terrorist network but also to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that had actively collaborated with Osama bin Laden.

Yet in one important sense the September 11 attacks should not have come as a great surprise. For several years, critics of Washington’s global interventionism had warned that the policy was greatly increasing the likelihood that adversaries would seek revenge by launching terrorist strikes against American targets. Indeed, long before September 11 there were ample signs of the danger. The bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 were only the most prominent examples. By the beginning of the 21st century, Washington’s habit of meddling in regional problems—especially the high-profile U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region and the